


By Definition

by Ori_Cat



Category: Incarceron Series - Catherine Fisher
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 16:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11604669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ori_Cat/pseuds/Ori_Cat
Summary: Claudia doesn't love Finn. Or at least, she thinks so.





	By Definition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThornedDream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThornedDream/gifts).



The first time Finn says “You don’t love me, do you?”, Claudia almost responds with “Of course”. 

(This is how betrothals work. This is how marriage works, really. True, some people find love within their marriages, like her parents, but for most - marriage is living and stability, it is status, it is heirs. It is not love.) 

She has the impression, though, that this is not a view Finn would share. She doesn’t know what his view is, is the problem. She doesn’t know what love looked like in the Prison for him. 

Does she love Finn? She can’t say, truly. Not like the girls in books do, certainly - she’s never dreamed about kissing him, never missed him for not seeing him for a day, never thought poisonous things about other girls merely because he spoke to them. (Although she is forced to admit that other reasons have been fair game for her.) 

But on the other hand - Finn is familiar. She likes spending time with him. He feels - not real, at least in the way that people usually mean. _Real_ , in the way her ancient dreams of running into the woods and never returning were real. More real than the things you can only touch. 

That’s not a good enough reason, though, that she’s just used to him. Like he’s not a person at all, like he’s a certain piece of furniture or a horse she grew up on. (Although she would be sad if he was gone. Maybe that’s all love is, really. _I would be sad if you were gone._ ) 

By this point, though, she has taken too long in replying, and Finn has already turned and left. 

* * *

_I might say this_ , her father said, _you love only Jared._

But that was different, she thinks. That wasn’t romantic. That wasn’t ever supposed to be romantic. Yes, she loves Jared. Endlessly, but that tells her very little about what she is supposed to feel for Finn. 

She is supposed to be Queen Consort. She is supposed to love him for the good of the Realm, she knows. The thing is - what about for the good of them? 

She kicks at a piece of grass. At least the maze is still there, even if the hedges are slimmer, dryer than she remembered. No, maybe this is what love is. Constant confusion. 

How can she ever hope to answer the question if she can’t define the terms? 

(To be fair, it is a very overused word. You love your parents or your children or your friends, you love your pets, you love to play music or dance or ride, you love strawberries or the colour blue, and not one of these loves is exactly the same as any other.) 

Finally, she gets to the astrolabe. It too is still there, on its stone pedestal (she knows stone crumbles. It just does it slowly), browned to chocolate by the alternating rain and sun. Today has been sun, so the surface is warm when she places her hands on it and stares into the circles. 

_Think of it this way,_ her father would say, if he were here and if he were the sort to give romantic advice. _If you were queen already, and had all the power that comes with that role, and could choose any king you wanted for your consort - anyone you’ve ever known - who would it be?_

(If the terms won’t define themselves, you define them. Make your argument serve you.) 

And she runs through the list in her head, of everyone she’s ever known, and she comes up with two, at the end: Giles, who gave her child-self white roses and tried to befriend her, and Finn, standing on her table and lecturing her servants. 

How lucky, then, that she can have both. 

* * *

Her - second - wedding day arrives. Claudia feels somewhat guilty that she does not view it as the most important day of her life, like it would have been before - although, to be perfectly fair, she has not exactly had a normal life either. But the weather remains bright and her dress is yellow as spring and her bouquet is full of goldenrod and wild anemones and ferns. Attia told her earlier how well she looked. (She and the other girl have been coming to a sort of understanding, since the freedom of the inmates and the Realm’s ruin. She hopes it will last.) 

The pomp and ceremony - well, as much pomp and ceremony as they could muster in the midst of the rebuilding of the Realm - are more for the sake of King Giles’ loyal subjects. Were she married in rags, she would still be married; were she crowned with a twist of ivy, she would still be queen. 

Halfway through all the speeches and the formalities, Finn meets her eye, and his look says the exact same thing. _This wasn’t all entirely necessary._ (Though it is true the Realm has been growing into efficiency these last few months, they have not perfected it yet.) She gives him a silent assenting eyebrow and is gratified to see his lips twitch in reply. 

And when finally, interminably, the officiant reaches “You may kiss the bride” and Finn kisses her, she smiles into his lips before returning it. 

* * *

The next day, she rises late to find Finn already at breakfast. She takes the seat beside him and deliberately does not wish him good morning. Instead she says, “I love you.” 

Finn just blinks at her. 

“Well? You did want to hear it.” 

“Well, yes, but…” He seems to think better of whatever he was going to say. “Thank you, Claudia. And I you.” 

(They can live like this, she thinks. And it isn’t anything like in the books, or what the ladies used to twitter over at Court - but this can be love for the two of them, if that is what they want it to be.)


End file.
